Lance Armstrong confesses in Oprah Winfrey interview, but that may not be enough says anti-doping agency
Lance Armstrong began January by apologizing to the dedicated individuals of his Live Strong foundation and then went public in an interview with Oprah Winfrey to confess his use of PEDs.
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Now a Jan. 26 report says the chief executive of the American anti-doping authority has written to Armstrong to say that he failed to confess the full extent of his cheating to Winfrey, and specifically lied when he claimed to have raced “clean” in 2009.
Armstrong was using PEDs his whole career. Before, during and after his amazing victories, Armstrong was cheating. Now the Tour de France cyclist will face the backlash and possible lawsuits because of his lies.
The cyclist, who has been stripped of his seven Tour de France victories, confessed so it could be possible to reduce the lifetime ban from competitive sport. The requirement is reportedly a “full confession to the authority setting out who helped him cheat and how.”
Travis Tygart, who leads the United Stated Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), said the offer would end on February 6, and hinted that criminal action could follow afterwards.
The most damaging consequence Armstrong could face is prosecution for perjury, having signed sworn statements to American federal authorities that he was not a drugs cheat.
Tygart states that Armstrong’s statement that his comeback attempt in 2009 was drug free is both untrue and an attempt to avoid criminal action as he could be prosecuted for criminal fraud over misleading his sponsors that he was clean. The earlier years would be covered by the American statue of limitations on fraud, which prevents cases being resurrected years after the offences were committed.
Mr Tygart reacted angrily to Armstrong saying that he did not consider himself a cheat because he had looked the word up in the dictionary and seen that it was defined as seeking unfair advantage. The cyclist said he was simply levelling the playing field because all other cyclists were cheating.
“It’s amazing. You could go to almost any kindergarten in this country or frankly around the world and find kids playing tag or four square and ask them what cheating is. Every one of them will tell you it’s breaking the rules of the game. No real athlete has to look up the definition of cheating. And it’s offensive to clean athletes who are out there working hard to play by the rules that apply to their sport.”
He added: “It’s just simply not true. The access they had to inside information, how to test, what tests were in place and what time. He was the one on an entirely different playing field to other athletes, even if you assume other athletes had access to some doping products.”
Below are some of the detailed confessions by Armstrong during the interview:
Oprah Winfrey: Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?
Lance Armstrong: “Yes.”
OW: Was one of those banned substances EPO?
LA: “Yes.”
OW: Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?
LA: “Yes.”
OW: Did you ever use any other banned substances such as testosterone, cortisone or Human Growth Hormone?
LA: “Yes.”
OW: In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?
LA: “Yes.”
OW: Was it humanly possible to win the Tour de France without doping, seven times?
LA: “Not in my opinion. That generation. I didn’t invent the culture, but I didn’t try to stop the culture.”
OW: For 13 years you didn’t just deny it, you brazenly and defiantly denied everything you just admitted just now. So why now admit it?
LA: “That is the best question. It’s the most logical question. I don’t know that I have a great answer. I will start my answer by saying that this is too late. It’s too late for probably most people, and that’s my fault. I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times, and as you said, it wasn’t as if I just said no and I moved off it.”
OW: You were defiant, you called other people liars.
LA: “I understand that. And while I lived through this process, especially the last two years, one year, six months, two, three months, I know the truth. The truth isn’t what was out there. The truth isn’t what I said, and now it’s gone – this story was so perfect for so long. And I mean that, as I try to take myself out of the situation and I look at it. You overcome the disease, you win the Tour de France seven times. You have a happy marriage, you have children. I mean, it’s just this mythic perfect story, and it wasn’t true.”
OW: Was it hard to live up to that picture that was created?
LA: “Impossible. Certainly I’m a flawed character, as I well know, and I couldn’t do that.”
OW: But didn’t you help paint that picture?
LA: “Of course, I did. And a lot of people did. All the fault and all the blame here falls on me. But behind that picture and behind that story is momentum. Whether it’s fans or whether it’s the media, it just gets going. And I lost myself in all of that. I’m sure there would be other people that couldn’t handle it, but I certainly couldn’t handle it, and I was used to controlling everything in my life. I controlled every outcome in my life.”
OW: You said to me earlier you don’t think it was possible to win without doping?
LA: “Not in that generation, and I’m not here to talk about others in that generation. It’s been well-documented. I didn’t invent the culture, but I didn’t try to stop the culture, and that’s my mistake, and that’s what I have to be sorry for, and that’s what something and the sport is now paying the price because of that. So I am sorry for that. I didn’t have access to anything else that nobody else did.”
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